Permit system aims to curb wilderness overuse

U.S. Forest Service officials in Central Oregon are working hard to protect our wilderness areas from an invasive species: us.

Reports show that areas such as the Three Sisters Wilderness have seen a 200 percent jump in visitors in just te past five years. In 2016, volunteers had to break down almost 2,000 campfires and remove more than 1,200 pounds of trash. That’s not to mention overcrowded trails and campsites or the effects people have on wildlife.

“We’re seeing a lot of human waste in wilderness that is not being buried. We’re seeing a lot of people creating their own campsites,” Kassidy Kern of the Deschutes National Forest said Tuesday. “Because of that high alpine ecosystem, it doesn’t recover as quickly as an ecosystem down here, maybe at 3,000 feet, where you can kind of trample on it a little bit.”

The Deschutes and Willamette national forests are working together to fix these problems by developing a proposed permit system.

The system, however, could cost people more time and money when they want to get out into nature. Some people are hesitant when they hear that something will cost them more, but officials said it’s a small price to pay for future generations.

“We want these places to be more pristine. We want them to be able to be as beautiful and as timeless as they were for our grandfathers as they will be for our children,” Kern said. “So I would hope that, when people are looking at this, that they would say, ‘How can we be the best stewards that we can be for these special places?’ and then look at this range of alternatives and say, ‘I recognize that something is needed.'”

Officials said implementing a permit system would help officials know where people are and where they’re headed. That would give officials a heads-up on which wilderness areas might need more attention.

The proposed permit options are sort of a sliding scale, ranging from changing nothing to being very restrictive. Forest officials said they’ll likely use a combination of all of the options, considering the wide variety of areas people can recreate in Central Oregon.

NewsChannel 21 asked people in Downtown Bend what they thought about all of this, and they were mostly understanding, if not completely thrilled by the idea.

“While it would be annoying to have to deal with something like that, if it’s what they have to do to preserve those trails for our use then, yeah, it’s OK,” one Bend woman said.

“You’ve got to educate the public on why you shouldn’t be doing the things you’re doing and, I guess, if the numbers overwhelm that, then maybe we’ll have to do fees. I would hate to see it come to that,” a man said.

“If that’s what it takes, better that than no trails or a poorly maintained system,” said a man who is visiting Bend specifically for its trails. “Being an out-of-towner, it’s a special thing to visit, and I’m willing probably to pay to have access to these trails here.”

The changes won’t happen any time soon. The two national forests are still in the planning process, deciding exactly what the permit system will look like. Without a plan, they can’t tell us how much anything will cost because they simply don’t know yet.

Kern said they’re aiming to have the details, including potential fees, ironed out by sometime in November. Then, officials will spend all of next year asking for public input and finalizing the plan.

The earliest we could see a the permit system in place is in spring of 2020.

Find more details on the project here:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/projectdetail/deschutes/landmanagement/planning/?cid=FSEPRD543135

https://www.fs.usda.gov/nfs/11558/www/nepa/105465_FSPLT3_3985607.pdf